


The Papercut Did It

by Newtavore



Series: raunchy pale threesome (with no sex) [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2905067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newtavore/pseuds/Newtavore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can see exhaustion weighing on every inch of him, and you realize… it’s always him. Always. You and Sollux, you both have your fair share of issues and idiosyncrasies and oddities about you, and he’s the one who deals with them. He deals with your paranoid fits, when you’re positive everyone is out to get you. He deals with your self esteem issues, and your hideous lack of self worth- according to him. He deals with Sollux’s moodswings, and his obsessive tendencies. He deals with his constant need for perfection, and his bitter outlook on other people, and his misanthropic dislike of anything not silicon based.</p><p>Karkat deals with everything, and you feel… like you should be doing more to help him. Like this is a one sided moiraillegience and that- that is unacceptable. You will not have this end like your last moiraillegience did. You will not allow that to come to pass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Papercut Did It

**Author's Note:**

> or, it's karkat's turn to get shooshpapped in this rousing third addition to the raunchy pale 3some series. 
> 
> merry christmas, sorry it's so late!

You aren’t sure what happened; all you know is that one moment everything was fine, and the next, Karkat is bleeding.

 

At a glance, you can tell it’s a simple injury; a small cut about the length of your pinky decorates the back of his hand, like he’d dropped a knife on it, maybe, and it’s so shallow that only a bit of blood seeps out, but that seems to be enough.

 

He goes rigid, tendons in his throat and arms cording out, like he’s prepping himself for battle; a deep, rumbling growl echoes from his mouth, eyes staring down at the injury but blank, unseeing. There’s something not quite right with the way he shifts, muscles tense, like a spring coiled too tight. You are not the only one to notice; Nepeta backs away from the kitchen counter, as does Equius, Vriska choosing to flee altogether. He bares his teeth, and you reach out, daring to settle a hand on his shoulder.

 

Stupid idea, of course. You should have known he’d lash out, but as usual, you weren’t thinking. The back of his hand makes contact with your face so fast it cracks, the sound echoing in your ears long after the pain has blossomed across your cheek. Your fingers are stiff with shock, and he pulls out of your grasp as if your grip is as effective as tissue paper, backing away.

 

“Kar,” you say, jaw cracking a bit as you speak, “Kar, paleheart, what’s wrong?”

 

You touch your cheek, but there’s no blood. Your jaw isn’t broken, and neither is your cheekbone. You’re fine, and you turn your attention back to him, taking one, two, three steps back.

 

“Shoosh,” you say, and he responds with a snarl, staring up at you from his crouched position on the floor with wild, unfocused eyes, “Shoosh, Kar, it’s alright. I ain’t gonna hurt you. C’mon, you're alright, you’re fine...”

 

You can feel Sollux coming before you see him, or hear him; your horns and gills and fins are hypersensitive to electrical stimuli, made to sense miniscule pulses of life deep beneath the sea. He is neither minuscule nor beneath the sea, and his use of psionics makes the keratin of your horns itch, the skin on the back of your neck crawl. You aren’t startled when his hand lands on your shoulder, or when he leans down, his horns brushing softly against your own.

 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and you shake your head, shrugging.

 

“He cut himself,” you murmur, your hand gripping his sleeve, keeping him from wandering carelessly into Karkat’s range of motion. You’re a seadweller and you’re built iron tough; the hit you’d taken with little problem would probably break his face.

 

“Shit.”

 

He pulls away from you despite your grip and floats forward, just out of reach.

 

“He’s out of it. Reacting on instinct because he just flashed his blood colour around like a giant sign that reads ‘Please Cull Me’, probably- he's had issues with shit like that before, freakouts and stuff. Operating on ‘kill everything that moves’ logic,” the yellowblood says, psionics crackling, “We’re… probably going to need to knock him out of it.“

 

Karkat had been a solid rock in your relationship for weeks; soothing your fears and frets and feelings of abandonment, easing Sollux’s moodswings and general feelings of irritation and depression in turn, helping the two of you get along better, being the glue that sticks the opposite poles of the magnets together. He has been dependable, and leaderly, and without flaw… but perhaps now it’s time for the two of you to step up and begin reciprocating,

 

“Grab him,” you say, and he looks at you, and hesitates.

 

That hesitation, that sign of weakness, is the only thing Karkat needs to spring, teeth bared, claws out. Only Sollux’s reflexes- honed, you suspect, from playing far too many first person shooters- save him from Karkat’s maw clamped around his throat; the redblood hits his shoulder instead, sending both of them toppling to the floor.

 

Karkat is large, and broad, having grown into himself over the sweeps; Sollux is tall, but thin, and the mutant’s weight pins him easily to the floor, horns sparking as his shoulder is reduced to a chew toy. You are small, but you are a seadweller- your strength is inherent, and you have no problems seizing Karkat by the scruff of the neck and detaching him, hissing and spitting, from the other half of your diamond quadrant.

 

You push his face to the floor- carefully- and pin him with ease, turning to Sollux, just now hoisting himself up from the ground. While he is contained, you don’t have any free hands to do that which needs to be done- you need Sollux to hold him for you while you calm him down.

 

“Grab him now!“ you order, and soft circles of red and blue wrap around Karkat’s waist and chest; the reaction… is immediate.

 

He starts shrieking like a wild thing, lashing out with claws and teeth and fists, trying his best to take one of you, or both of you out. His arms are tucked against his sides, his knees and feet pressed against his chest as he begins to use those as weapons instead; as soon as Sollux has immobilized his most dangerous tools, you are there, reaching out to him. He snaps his teeth at you, but you just catch his jaw in your hands, smoothing them up to cup his cheeks.

 

“Shoosh,” you say, voice stern, one hand papping him gently on the cheek, imitating him, copying the motions and words he'd used when calming _you_ down, “Shoosh now, Kar. You’re alright.”

 

He snarls, struggling wildly against his psionic bonds; Sollux pulls him in, pulls him close, wraps him up in his arms and adds the heat of his body to the bands of energy holding Karkat still, holding the troll against his chest and humming softly.

 

“Shoosh,” you repeat, and he falters, the angry yowling dying out in his throat, lips twitching as they cover his teeth; “Shoosh,” you say again, and his eyes droop, head dropping, body sagging low. Clearly you are doing something right.

 

“Shoosh,” you say, your hands stroking over his face, and he snaps weakly at you, but goes limp; Sollux’s hold changes from restraining to cradling, bracing Karkat rather than holding him still.

 

You watch the recognition flood into his eyes, the awareness; no longer does he stare at you as if you’re an enemy, something to be terminated with all due force. You brush over his cheek with the backs of your fingers, and he blinks, his own hand reaching up to shakily touch your face.

 

“Oh my god,” he says, hoarse and rough, and horrified, “Oh my god, your face...”

 

His fingers press against your cheek and forgotten pain swells, everything from just beneath your eye to your jaw aching; you ignore it, cupping his cheeks in your hands and tilting his head for a kiss, pressing your lips to his forehead and crooning to him softly. Sollux leans in to nuzzle against his jaw, psii flickering out and stroking over Karkat’s horns; between the two of you, Karkat is shooshed into oblivion, eyes glazed, relaxed and purring quietly.

 

You’re quick to escort him to a pile, after that; Sollux carries him, arms tucked under his knees and behind his back, the flickering of his horns telltale signs he has to cheat in order to lift the other troll. He lays Karkat down, and both of you surround him with your bodies, cradling him between you like the precious thing he is.

 

He trembles, and you touch his face, his throat, his chest, your hands skimming over his shaking frame even as Sollux presses close to his back, folding long limbs protectively around him.

 

He’s so strong, all the time, for you and for Sollux, that it’s… it’s almost surreal, to see him hurting like this. To see his body quivering, to see his face crumpling, to see the way he leans into your touch like a lifeline, his hands reaching behind him to grip Sollux’s hips, claws digging in. It’s strange, to see him vulnerable; you lean in and kiss him, your lips cold against the fever-hot of his skin, and he whimpers, his hands cradling your cheeks.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, hoarse and soft and apologetic, “I hurt you, fuck-”

 

You shush him. He goes quiet, eyes fluttering as you take his hands in yours, holding them against your chest, between the two of you. Sollux holds him tight, his arms wrapped around Karkat’s chest, hands braced over his heart, and you curl around the redblood and shush him again, a purr vibrating in your throat.

 

“It’s alright,” you murmur, hushing him when he shakes his head, “You were scared. It’s fine. You didn’t mean to.”

 

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” he snaps, voice watery, on the verge of tears, hands curling into your shirt and hauling you closer, “I fucking- I hurt you, I shouldn’t have hurt you, fuck-”

 

You shift. You press against him, sandwiching him between you and Sollux until every inch of him is being touched; contact soothes him, as much as he’d never admit it, and this close, you can feel him relax, the muscle groups in his body losing tension one by one.

 

Sollux makes a soft, lispy noise, a gentle hiss, and rubs hands over Karkat’s sides, fingers ghosting over the bumps of his ribs that only show when he breathes in deep and shuddering. He hums, no particular tune, just a droning, monotonous tone, but it’s not necessarily the noise Karkat needs, but the vibrations in Sollux’s chest, the hum and pulse and drone of life, the beat of his bloodpusher and the drumming of yours against your chest. Proof of life.

 

“You were scared,” he repeats, your words sounding different on his tongue, more firm, “So shut up and calm down before you make yourself sick. We’re fine. We’re alive. You didn’t hurt us KK, not anything that can’t be fixed. You went into fight or flight and this time you picked fight.”

 

He whines, upset, and nuzzles under your jaw, animalistically apologetic; his tongue drags across a sore spot, soothing, and you sigh, tilting your head down to kiss his forehead again. You decide not to mention the sluggishly bleeding bite mark on Sollux’s shoulder- not yet, anyways.

 

“It’s alright,” you say again, combing your fingers through his tangled hair- it’s so nice, thick and soft and curly and he never fucking takes care of it, it drives you batty- and rubbing the bases of his horns, the purr rattling in your chest as you press as close as you can.

 

You can feel his heart rate slow, his body drop from terrified alertness to measured calm; you run your hands down to pap his cheeks again, and he chirrs at you, soft and sweet.

 

“It’s a stupid response,” he slurrs, blinking slowly, “Everyone… already knows...”

 

“It’s a trained response,” Sollux rebuffs, before you even have a chance to open your mouth.

 

“KK, you’ve been hiding for your life for sweeps. You can’t just forget sweeps of conditioning because suddenly everyone knows a secret that used to be life threatening for you. So just… calm down. Let us take care of you. You don’t have to be the shooshpapper all the time, we can handle a bit of responsibility.”

 

He sighs, and this time, when his blinks, his eyes stay shut. You can see exhaustion weighing on every inch of him, and you realize… it’s always him. Always. You and Sollux, you both have your fair share of issues and idiosyncrasies and oddities about you, and he’s the one who deals with them. He deals with your paranoid fits, when you’re positive everyone is out to get you. He deals with your self esteem issues, and your hideous lack of self worth- according to him. He deals with Sollux’s moodswings, and his obsessive tendencies. He deals with his constant need for perfection, and his bitter outlook on other people, and his misanthropic dislike of anything not silicon based.

 

Karkat deals with everything, and you feel… like you should be doing more to help him. Like this is a one sided moiraillegience and that- that is unacceptable.

 

You will not have this end like your last moiraillegience did. You will not allow that to come to pass.

 

So you hold him. Karkat is bigger than you- you’ve yet to hit your growth spurt and likely wouldn’t for another sweep or two- but he’s curled up, compact, and it’s easy to wrap your arms around him. You hold him, and you croon, petting his face with the tips of your fingers and lulling him to a much deserved rest.

 

Between you and Sollux, Karkat is soothed to sleep. He’s bigger than both of you, but like this, dark lashes brushing over pale cheeks, still tear stained- when had he started crying? are you a terrible moirail for not noticing?- he looks… small. Fragile. You tighten your grip and he shifts, tucking his head under your chin with a sleepy warble.

 

You open your mouth, but Sollux once again speaks before you can.

 

“We’ve been neglecting him,” he says, ragged double-fangs gnawing on his lip; you reach out with the hand not cradling Karkat close and pry the abused flesh from his maw, brushing your thumb over yellowed skin. You relationship with him is not as... solidified as the one you have with Karkat, but you know the redblood would not want him to hurt himself. You don't think you want him to hurt himself, either.

 

“We can fix that,” you say, and he nods, leaning into your touch. His cheek slides into your hand like it was meant to fit there, and you sigh, closing your eyes.

 

“He deserves that much.”

 

“He does. More than we’ve been givin’ him, that’s for sure.”

 

His forehead presses against yours. His skin is warm compared to your own, not quite the febrile heat of Karkat’s body but close.

 

“Go to sleep,” he orders, soft for all his bluntness, “I’ll stay up. Watch over him.”

 

 _‘And you’_ goes unspoken, but you hear it, and you’re grateful. You breathe deep, and you can hear him humming, that strange, contented noise he makes that’s not a tune, just a tone, just… a sound. It echoes in your ears as you fall asleep, Karkat’s breath ghosting across your throat, Sollux’s hand buried in your hair; as you drift, you promise yourself that from now on, things will be… equal.

 

Between all of you.

  
  



End file.
